Best Server Platform

[tweenerz]

I was curious as to what setup (if any particular one) is best for Filemaker Server. Does it matter between Mac OS X Server or Windows 2000 Server. Or is it mainly a matter of preference and price? Does Filemaker Server run better on any particular platform? Are there any capatability issues with clients?

Thanks in advance.

 

[twiSSt]

Well this is one of those loaded questions, that all are trying to avoid. But here is my thoughts,we have run FM server on win 2k for 2yrs + without any major problems, but were nerver able to get it running on either of our Xserves. It continually crashed the box and was just problematic. We never determined if it was the box or FM server itself.
We serve files to both pc running XP and mac's running anything from OS 8.6 thru the latest version of X, without any real problems other than the limitations of the client box.
Now I'm sure that someone else has had different experiences and will be sure to voice there agreement or disagreement.

 

[tweenerz]

Thanks for the response. That surprises me since it seems that Filemaker for a long time had favored macs. Were you doing web companion stuff, or just straight Filemaker Server hosting internally?

All comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[twiSSt]

Just internal hosting, no web. Don't get me wrong, we are very happy with the xServe, it just didn't work out with FM. Like I stated earlier, we never determined if it was FM, X or both.

There are a few features in FM itself for PC that are unavailable under MacOs's, the dial script step and execute SQL statement script step to name a few, which makes me lean towards it favoring PC's.

But let me say this, I'm not stating that X can't fun FM server, but that we were unable to get it running properly and moved on to other more pressing matters. I'm actually suprised that there were not a few other responses to the exact opposite of what I posted.

 

[NorthStarDA]

i would like to see FM server on OSX run as a daemon similar to MySQL. The server being an application that had to be running made it less appealing to me than FM Server for windows, which runs as a service.

When hosting larger databases (160,000 records), we found that we could never shut down the FM Server on OSX. It would try it's best, but would never finish the shut down process. So we had to force-quit the application, which then corrupted the large database and every database after it alphabetically. We tried this on multiple macs with dual G4 processors, over 1Gb of memory (not a hardware issue).

never had these problems on FMServer for windoze.


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I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

 

[tweenerz]

Thanks NorthStar.

Unfortunately, I am not sure what a daemon is and how to set it up. Is it pretty straightforward? The extent of my Mac knowledge is derived from pre-OSX days and I know OSX is significantly different that 9 and below.

Is this something that is better left to someone who knows OSX really well?

************

So far I am getting the feeling that I would be better off running it on Windows as I have not heard anything stating that Mac would be a better solution than PC. Of course, this is a extremely small survey pool

 

[NorthStarDA]

no that's something FileMaker would have to do, and it doesn't look like they are going to. A daemon is just a process running in the background waiting for connections. I was basically defining why I like to use FMServer on windows instead of mac.


=========================================
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

 

[twiSSt]

If you would like to expand your research check out some of the other FileMaker Forums online, fmforums.com for starters and a smaller but very useful one at

http://talk.markjeffords.com/fmtalk/forum.asp?.

Beware, your question may start a few verbal wars between the MAC and windoze factions.